Five Years Time
by Ashlee Pond
Summary: They reach for the last carton of custard at the same time, & as soon as his hand clasps over hers he's reeling back, awkwardly apologising. She tells him not to worry about it, & he notes her accent before all coherent thought falls away because as soon as he sees her he knows she's the one. "You're beautiful," he says, and she stares at him like he's mad. - Amy x Eleven AU.
1. love at first sight

**april, year one**

A supermarket isn't really the most noteworthy of places to meet your soul mate, but that's where they meet and they wouldn't change it for the world.

They reach for the last carton of custard at the same time, and as soon as his hand clasps over hers he's reeling back, awkwardly apologising and stuttering. She tells him not to worry about it, and he notes her accent before all coherent thought falls away because _wow… she is stunning._

Red hair tumbling around her shoulders, down to her hips, a cascade of fire around a pale moon face, and long, long limbs encased in a dress that should be illegal.

As soon as he sees her he knows she's the one.

"You're beautiful," he says, and she stares at him like he's mad.

"Thanks," she says eventually. She holds the custard up. "Do you want this?"

"No, no, you can have it." He notices the bunch of bananas she's holding in her other hand. "Bananas and custard? I used to love bananas… gone off them a bit now, I think."

She nods towards the basket he's holding, her eyes landing on the blue box on top of the pile of groceries. "Fish fingers and custard?"

He can't do anything but laugh at the ridiculousness of that, and soon she's laughing too, and he thinks that her laugh is the most beautiful sound he's ever heard. And he thinks this is fate, that he was meant to run into her and the words toppling out of his mouth were an inevitability anyway, so there's no need to be embarrassed by them.

"Would you like to try it?"

"What?" She blinks at him, eyes huge and green and specked with brown.

"Fish fingers and custard?"

She doesn't answer his question. "Are you mad?"

"Probably."

There's a pause then, between two strangers standing in the dairy isle of the supermarket, and he feels as though his entire future depends on her answer and that terrifies him more than anything.

When she finally speaks, it's not what he expected. "Do you like ice-cream?"

"Of course I like ice-cream. I'm not an alien."

She quirks an eyebrow at that, because for all she knows he could be, but then she says, "Alright."

He's not sure if he understands what she's saying, so he tries to stop the hope fluttering through his veins before it sets him alight. "Alright?"

"Alright, you bring the fish fingers and I'll bring the custard. And if it's gross we can have ice-cream instead."

"Alright!" He's far too eager but he's so far past caring because he'll get to see her again and that's the only thing that matters. "I'm John."

"Amelia," she introduces herself, "Amelia Pond."

"Amelia Pond," he repeats, and the sound of him saying her name makes her smile so brightly she lights up the entire room.

He never stood a chance.

* * *

**a.n. **another amy/eleven au because my last one got such great feedback! this one will be multi-chapter and less depressing, I promise. I'll try to keep new posts regular but no guarantees, because I'm terrible. please review and let me know what you think, it's feedback that inspires me to keep going!


	2. wine makes it a date

**april, year one, ii.**

He gets knocked over by a cyclist as he crosses the road to get to her house, landing hard on the asphalt and tearing holes in his shirt. He rolls into a puddle to avoid getting run over by a car, and by then his carefully chosen suit is not only tattered but also wet, and he thinks she's never going to let him into her house looking like this.

He's so worried about it that he loses track of his own feet and trips over her front step, nearly face-planting into the hall wall as soon she opens the door. It doesn't help that it's been three days since they met in the supermarket and the mere sight of her is enough to knock the air from his probably-punctured lungs.

She gasps and grabs his arm and when they touch it's like an electric current, a pulse of fate, a warning sign screaming at them in bright, white neon _this is the one. _

"Are you okay?" she asks, and the sound of her voice alone is enough to comfort him.

"Fine," he replies, straightening up and ignoring the pain in his side. "I just fell."

"From where, the top of a building? Look at you, you're all raggedy!"

He scrunches his nose. "_Raggedy_?"

"Come on, Raggedy Man, let's clean you up a bit."

She takes him to the bathroom and gives him a towel to dry off a bit, tending to his cuts and wincing in sympathy when she touches one of his numerous bruises. He thinks the feel of her fingertips against his skin more than makes up for any of the pain he's feeling.

He tries to make small talk but it comes out as nonsense, and he wonders vaguely if he has a concussion.

"I think we should go to the hospital," she says, but he shakes his head.

"No, no, I'm fine!"

She chews her bottom lip, and he can tell she's about to argue, but he gently grasps her wrist and says, "Twenty minutes. If I'm not fine in twenty minutes you can take me to the hospital."

She searches his face, and he stubbornly holds her gaze, pleading with his eyes. He doesn't want to ruin this, to take away any time he could be spending with her.

She relents, and he has to stop himself from kissing her right then and there.

He manages to follow her into the kitchen without breaking anything {he catches the vase of sunflowers before she notices it wobble, so that near miss doesn't even count} and he tries not to stare too obviously as she bends over to put the fish fingers in the oven, but from the smirk she shoots him he's pretty sure she noticed that.

"So," he says, trying to think of something to say to divert her attention from his blush, "What do you do?"

"What do I _do_?" she asks, one eyebrow raised.

"Uh, you know, what do you do to earn money… what's your… uh, _job! _Job, that's it. What do you do for a living, is what I meant to ask."

She's smiling at him as though she finds his nerves endearing, but he's very quickly feeling as though this date {_is it a date? _Surely it's a date, what else would it be?} is slipping away from him. He takes a sip of the wine she's poured him {_wine_; definitely a date} and tries to remember how to breathe through his nostrils.

"I'm actually in between jobs at the moment," she tells him, but she doesn't look sad about it. "What about you?"

"Me? Me, oh, I'm a doctor. A teacher, sorry, I'm a _teacher_. I have my doctorate, so technically I _am_ a doctor, but I don't know why I said that. I'm not a doctor, I'm a teacher."

She sips her wine and leans her hip against the counter. "Oh yeah? What do you teach, Raggedy Doctor?"

She's already given him _a nickname! _For a second he wonders if this moving a bit too fast but then he looks at her in her navy blue cocktail dress and he thinks, if anything, it's moving far too slowly.

"A bit of everything, really. Mainly science and history. Try to make it fun for the kids, you know… get them interested in learning and all that." He stops himself before he starts ranting.

She looks impressed by his occupation. That's a good sign.

"What did you do… I mean, what was your last job?" He goes to lean his elbow on the bench but it slips sideways and his whole left side free falls awkwardly. Oh, he's not very good at this.

"I was a kissogram."

"Oh, that's ni – What?" It takes a moment for her words to process, and when they do he can't help but stare. How old is she? Surely too young to be a – a _kissogram_.

She laughs, but he can see defensiveness in the slight hunch of her shoulders and the fire in her eyes. "I went to parties and I kissed people. It was a laugh."

He wants so badly to say the right thing that of course he ends up saying something totally wrong. "I bet you were good at it."

Oh, god.

She smiles though, almost predatorily. "I was."

And then the timer on the oven goes off, and he just about jumps out of his skin.

Five minutes later and she's staring dubiously at him sitting across from her, bowl of custard and plate of fish fingers between them on her kitchen table top.

"Well, this was your idea," she says, nudging the custard towards him, "Go on."

"Ladies first," he insists, pushing it back.

She holds out a hand though, stops the bowl from coming any closer and says, "I'm not trying it until you have."

So he takes the plunge, picks up a fish finger with his bare hand and dips it into the custard. The custard drips off the end of the fish finger, but it doesn't smell too bad, actually, so before he can overthink it he takes a huge bite and chews.

"Yum!" he declares, grinning at her as he finishes the fish finger and reaches for another.

"Seriously?"

"Seriously. Go on, try some."

He dips another fish finger in and then holds the dry end out to her, waggling his eyebrow insistently. She warily takes it from his grasp, sniffing it before taking a bite. But once she has, she grins back at him.

"Not too bad, Raggedy Man."


	3. she belongs there

**january, year two.**

She sings in the shower, loud enough to be heard over the rushing water and through the door. When he swings it open he's hit by a wall of warm steam and the sight of her there, perfect porcelain skin stretched over her bones and red hair darkened and sticking to her face-neck-shoulders. He pushes it aside to kiss her, tasting fresh water and that undeniable sweetness that is _her._

Bottles of her shampoo, conditioner, body wash are stacked haphazardly on the floor with his own, and as he runs his hands over her soapy skin he realises that he can't remember what his life was like without her in it.

* * *

**a.n. **i think ff stuffed up and didn't notify you guys of the last update. go read review it if you haven't already? and let me know what you think of this one! the chapters are going to jump around over the time frame, although every now and again there'll be some that run in chronological order.


	4. making it official

**june, year two.**

They're watching telly together, just cheesy sitcoms that are there for background noise more than anything, and she's lying on his couch with her skinny ankles crossed in his lap, her head propped up on the arm rest, and as she watches the telly he watches her.

Her whole face crinkles when she laughs – the corners of her eyes, her nose, her chin, they all scrunch up, and he thinks it's the most adorable thing he's ever seen, so he makes her laugh as much as possible.

He rubs a hand against the protruding bone of her ankle, slipping it up and under the edge of her sock. She yelps and leans forward awkwardly to slap his hand away.

"Stop that!"

"Stop what?" he asks as he gently tugs the sock off her foot.

"No, give that back!" she exclaims, trying to launch forward and failing miserably.

He holds the woollen sock in the air and observes the stitching, green dots against a bright yellow background. He drops it on to the floor, next to discarded boxes of Chinese take out, and starts tickling the bottom of her foot. She flails, kicking hard against him and trying to get free, but he bends forward and holds her in place, grinning evilly as she screams for mercy.

"No, stop, stop that!" she shrieks, trying desperately to pull her foot free.

"You have hideous taste in socks, do you know that?"

She yells, accent more prominent than ever, "My socks are fine, I just have hideous taste in boyfriends!"

He drops her foot.

"What?"

She's staring at him, panicked, and as soon as he releases her she pulls her knees up under her chin, hunching in the corner of the couch as far away from him as she can get. Her round face is flushed, and he wants to kiss her but he doesn't know if she'll let him.

"What?" he repeats, and she stays silent. "Did you – did you just call me your boyfriend?"

She jumps up off the couch in an explosion of gangly limbs and flustered panic, immediately sweeping around the room and cleaning up the mess from their dinner. She uses her hair to hide her face, speaking at a million miles an hour.

"It was an accident, you know, I didn't actually mean to call you… that. Because you're not. You're not that, and I'm totally fine with it, because this is just a casual thing and casual is good, we're not looking for anything long term and we agreed that we wouldn't -"

While she talks he slowly regains control of his limbs and stands, walking over to her so that when she spins around he's there, right in front of her, staring into her eyes and trying to tell her that it's okay. He gently takes the containers from her and puts them on the coffee table before clasping her hands in his own.

"You called me your boyfriend." He could have said it teasingly, but he doesn't. He says it earnestly, with enough happy surprise to make her start to uncoil.

Her anxious lines begin to soften, expression shifting into one of hope and body pitching forward ever so slightly, closer to him. She looks at their feet and mumbles, "Shut up."

"Does this mean I can finally call you my girlfriend?"

When she looks up at him he registers that her eyes are the most beautiful colour in the world, but he doesn't have time to read the expression in them before she's kissing him. It's not like their other kisses; this one is tender, and open, and she's so very, very vulnerable with the way that she's clutching at his jacket as though she's scared he's going to slip away from her if she loosens her grip. But that's never going to happen, he decides as his lips part against hers and they share a breath. How could that ever happen? How could he let go of the most wonderful thing that's ever come into his life?

"You're not hideous," she eventually murmurs against his lips.

He smiles, cupping her beautiful face in his hands. "I am a bit."

"Yeah, just a bit," she laughs, and he feels as though everything in the world is exactly as it should be.

* * *

**a.n. **if you're enjoying the story (or even if you're not) please leave a review and let me know! if there's any particular scenes you want explored or more of a certain genre (angst, fluff, etc.) just ask and i'll happily write it. thanks for reading!


	5. a funny feeling

**may, year one**

She stops dead in the middle of stirring the batter for the cake they're making, eyes focusing on some distant point over the top of his right shoulder. Her hands have stilled and she has this _look _on her face, this look that makes him drop the spoon he was holding and run over to cup her face in his hands.

"Amelia," he says, stooping down ever so slightly to look straight into her eyes. "Are you alright?"

She slowly drags her focus on to him, hazel eyes peering straight into his blue ones, and he watches her pupils dilate. Her bottom lip drops, mouth forming a relaxed 'o' shape, and then she scans his face, eyes lingering around his nose, his lips, his chin before dropping down to the bowl she's still holding between them. He drops his hands from her cheeks, wringing them in front of his chest instead.

"Sorry," she mumbles, slightly dazed, using the back of her hand to push some loose strands of hair out of her face.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I just – I just had this really weird feeling, all of a sudden."

She's still not quite with him, so he tilts his head down into her line of sight. She meets his gaze again and smiles, and he lets out a sigh of relief as they both straighten up.

"Good gods, Pond, don't ever do that again. I thought I'd lost you."

She laughs, but her heart isn't quite in it and one of her eyebrows is quirked at a most curious angle. "Bit dramatic, aren't you?"

"Says the girl who just froze solid because she got a weird feeling," he counters. There's a beat, and then he asks, "What was the feeling, anyway?"

He's trying to project casualness, but she can probably sense his slight distress, just underneath the surface.

"I just -" she pauses, takes a deep breath and shakes her head. He looks at her encouragingly, and she tells him, "I feel like I've met you before."

He blinks, hands clasped in front of himself, mouth skewed with surprise. "Oh."

"Yeah, _oh_," she says, putting the bowl down and blowing her hair off her forehead.

"Well, we _have _met before. I've known you for almost two months now -" His hands flap about in front of him as he talks, fingers wiggling as though they're the only outlet for his discomfort.

She narrows her eyes. "You know that's not what I mean."

Embarrassed, he tries his best to reassuring, but from her expression it doesn't really seem to be working. "It's not _that_ weird."

"Do you feel like you've met me before?" she asks.

He can tell that a lot is hinging on his answer, so he takes his time to reply, "Amelia Pond, I do not believe in coincidences. I think that we were meant to meet, and I think that if it hadn't been over that particular carton of custard it would have been over another. Or maybe we would have met at a playground when we were little, because you would have been on the swing and I would have wanted to have a go. Or maybe I would have been driving, and I would have spotted you waiting at the traffic lights and been so blinded by your mane of ginger hair that I ran a red light and crashed -"

"Rambling," she interjects.

"Yes, of course," he says seriously, moving his hands to rest them on her shoulders. "The point is, you and I were meant to meet, sooner or later. So yes, I feel like I've met you before. I feel like I always meet you, no matter what else happens."

She smiles, genuine, and dabs a bit of cake batter off her pointer finger onto his chin.

"I like that idea."

"Thought you would."

* * *

**a.n. **thanks for reading and reviewing, i love you all!


	6. good night

**june, year one, ii.**

It's 11.45 on a Friday night when she calls him. He answers the phone on the second ring and notices that her accent sounds far more prominent than usual. He quickly concludes that her Scottishness must rear its head after a few drinks.

"Come out," she's saying, pleading with him.

"I don't know, I have a lot of papers to mark -"

"Please, Raggedy Man," she whines, and his defences are crumbling because she hasn't called him Raggedy Man since that first night at her house, it's always been boring old John, and he thinks he likes the sound of this nickname, special to the two of them, more than he should.

"Amelia, I have a lot of work to do -"

She scoffs. "Work, schmork. Come out, come dance with me! It'll be fun. You like fun."

"I do like fun." He registers that his left hand is already reaching for his jacket, and quickly pulls it back. "But I'm busy."

"Too busy for your Amelia Pond?"

Oh, damn it.

There's a moment of silence, and then someone yells in the background of her call and he sighs, "Fine. Where are you?"

"Yay!" she shrieks, high-pitched and bubbling over with excitement. "We're going to have so much fun, Raggedy Man, just you wait!"

He shakes his head, smiling fondly, and opens up his wardrobe as she tells him the name of the club. "Give me twenty minutes."

The last thing she says before hanging up is, "I can't wait!"

{*}

He gets ready with impressive speed and slicks his hair back in the rear-view mirror of his car before joining the distressingly long queue to get into the bar Amelia's at. It's located inside what used to be a post office, in the 18th century, and he's admiring the impressive brickwork façade to keep himself entertained when he hears her voice.

"Raggedy Man!" And then, in an entirely different tone, "_Not-so-Raggedy Man._"

She's stumbling past the bouncers and down the line towards him, all ginger hair and white legs so prominently on display under that short white dress, gaining the attention of everyone there. There's a pass-out stamp on the back of her left hand, a dark circle of ink over a smattering on her freckles, and he beams at her.

"Hello, Amelia."

"_What _are you _wearing_?" she asks in pure disbelief.

She's close enough now to touch him, but she's slightly unsteady in her bright red heels and so when she reaches for his lapel she kind of falls into him instead.

"It's a tux," he says, as if this explains everything. His hands are gripping her arms, keeping her from falling completely onto him.

"It's ridiculous."

Well that hurts a bit. He'd looked up the place before he left, found that it was a bit fancy and decided that if he was going to go out he might as well put some effort in.

"Oh. Well, I can go, if you'd -"

She leans forward and whispers, breath warm against his ear, "It's so ridiculous it's kind of hot."

A red hot blush spreads across his cheeks from the point where her lips brush his skin. "What?" he splutters.

She merely winks at him and steals his top hat, popping it atop her ginger curls and smirking devilishly, before clasping his hand and leading him back up to the imposing bouncers.

"Hi Jeff," she says to one who fills out the tight uniform very well. "He's with me."

"This is him?" Jeff says, pointing at him but looking at her. "This is that doctor you've been -"

"Teacher, actually," he can't help but interject.

She slaps his arm, lightly, fondly, almost territorially, and says to both him and Jeff, "Shut up."

Jeff lifts the velvet rope and lets them through, and as they descend the stairs they're hit by a wall of sound and flashing lights.

She has to put her lips right against his ear in order to be heard over the music, so he can feel her sounding out the words. "Thanks for coming!"

"I'll always come when you call," he says, overwhelmed by how soft and nice and right her cheek feels pressed against his own.

She pulls back to blink at him, and as much as a part of him wishes she was too drunk to really comprehend that, he can see in her eyes that it slipped through the alcoholic barrier into a rational part of her mind. Her cherry red lips part, as though she's about to say something very serious indeed, and –

"Amy!" There's a man, bounding up the stairs to meet them, lean with blonde hair and a nose that's out of proportion to the rest of his face.

"Rory," she says breathlessly, and he wishes he knew if it were what he'd said or this new man's arrival that's taken her breath away.

"Oh, my god," Rory's saying, reaction not so different to Jeff's, "It's you."

He raises an eyebrow at her, wondering just how many people she's told about him.

"Shut up," she grumbles. "This is Rory, he's a – friend."

Rory glances at her and awkwardly laughs, and he has a sinking feeling he knows what he's going to say next – but then Rory surprises him by starting back down the stairs, waving for them to follow. "Come on, I've got us a good seat for the band."

She holds his hand on the way down, presumably for help balancing in her heels, and she doesn't let go until they're squeezed in next to each other in a booth on the side of the lounge area, which is a lot quieter and darker than the dance room glimpsed on the other side of the stairs.

They sit there with Rory for hours, drinking round after round, and he listens with rapt attention as Rory tells him embarrassing stories from her childhood and she throws her head forward dramatically, covering her face with her hands and spilling her curtain of hair over the table top. He finds himself quite enjoying Rory's company, mixed in with good music and nice mocktails {he leaves the cocktails to her, and she drinks more than enough to make up his share} and so when she gets up to go to the loo he feels comfortable enough to ask the question that's been bugging him since he got here.

"So has Amelia been talking about me?"

Rory laughs heartily. "Won't shut up about you."

"Oh." He feels something like pride bubbling inside his chest.

"You should hear her. Prattling on about how you 'fell out the sky' and how her life was so boring before," Rory tells him, and he takes another sip of his drink just to give his hands something to do.

"Is that – I mean, well, were you two – _are _you two…?" he can't bring himself to finish the question, and he's so grateful that Rory isn't so drunk he misses the point.

"Nah," he shakes his head, slightly downcast. "Nah, we tried that, back in high school. I proposed to her, did you know that?"

He nearly inhales his curly straw. "What?"

"Yeah. She wasn't ready though." Rory shakes his head as if clearing it of bad memories. "I don't think I was either, though, really. We were a bit too young and I was a bit too madly in love. We're friends now, though… Still. We've been friends since we were kids and I'm glad we still are."

He's overcome by the sudden urge to hug Rory, and so he does. He slides across the booth and embraces the other man, who stiffens immediately, totally unprepared for the contact.

He only breaks away when she announces her return with a loud, mock-annoyed, "Oi! None of that while I'm gone, thank you very much."

He grins up at her, standing there with her hands on her hips and his top hat still on her head, and she beams back. "Let's dance."

Rory sighs and looks at his watch. "It's late, Amy, I really should get going -"

"Rory, don't be a party pooper," she whines, reaching for his hands and missing completely, having to splay them on the table top instead to stop herself from falling over.

"Sorry, but I've got to be at the hospital tomorrow. You know, saving lives and all that -"

She laughs and when he stands up she kisses his cheek with a fondness so tender it almost hurts to watch.

"Besides, I think you're in good care here," Rory says, grasping his hand and pulling him into a manly hug, with a pat on the back and no face-to-face contact at all.

They watch him go, and then she turns and demands, "Dance with me."

He takes her hand and tells her, "I only came for the dancing."

{*}

He really does like dancing. They dance normally, close together but not quite properly touching, sort of bopping along to the beat and occasionally throwing their hands in the air when the song calls for it.

And then the band is replaced by a DJ, and the crowd surges and pushes them together, so that his leg is in between hers and he can feel every movement of her hips, grinding against him, and she loops her hands around the back of his neck and looks at him with a feral glint in her eyes. He doesn't know what to do with his hands, doesn't know where he can put them on her body that won't set off a chain reaction, and so they wave around his head awkwardly for a bit. He tries to put them on her shoulders at one point, but they move to her neck and then to cup her face and then he only just recovers himself in time to pull back from what was very nearly a disaster. She looks up at him with hurt confusion, but she doesn't move away. If anything she moves closer, and he panics that he's unintentionally given her a challenge.

Just when he thinks he's going to have to leave, that he can't stand it any more, the DJ is replaced by a pre-recorded, pre-set playlist, and the crowd thins out enough for him to get some space between them, calm himself down, and _really _dance. Without the heat of her pressed so close against him he relaxes, and suddenly he finds himself being the most ridiculous he's been in years. He flings his arms around in the air, waving them above his head and bending his knees, and she flops back and forward as she laughs and attempts to imitate him. She does a poor job of it, but she looks pretty adorable as she tries, so he can forgive her.

"What _is_ that?" she asks as he shimmies towards her, arms waving above his head. "You're terrible!"

But she still dances with him, on and on and on until there's no one on the dance floor but the two of them, and the lights are no longer dimmed and the typical dance music has been replaced by a ballad.

She's leaning on him, arms around his neck and head resting on his shoulder, and his hands are around her waist, holding her long-discarded heels, and he likes this so much more than the type of huggy-dancing they were doing earlier. Just holding her, feeling her heart beat, smelling her hair, knowing that she's here in his arms and safe, young and safe and happy to just be with him.

They stay like that until the music stops, until their arching feet don't allow them to dance anymore, until they're just standing there, holding each other.

The staff eventually kick them out and when they emerge outside it's into a world lit by the perfect blue of pre-dawn. His car is parked two blocks away, the closest spot he could find when he arrived, but with the lack of traffic now it's visible sitting on its own beside the curb.

"Walk me home," she demands, and he realises that her house is only a block away, in the opposite direction to his car.

Perhaps that's how she's on a first-name basis with the bouncer.

She leans on him for half the block, until he becomes so concerned she's going to fall and hurt herself he scoops her up into his arms and carries her bridal style the rest of the way. It would be almost romantic, he thinks, if she wasn't passed out. As she loses consciousness her head flops back and exposes the perfect, pale skin of her neck, and her arms hang uselessly by her sides.

He eventually, somehow, manages to get them inside her house, and he gently lays her down on her bed. He pulls the covers up over her and stoops to plant a kiss on her forehead before turning to go, planning to walk back to his car or maybe even sleep on her couch, because what if she feels hung over when she wakes up and needs someone to cook her breakfast –

She reaches out and curls his fingers around his wrist, and stops dead.

"Dontgo," she mumbles, the words blurring into each other with sleep. Her eyes aren't even open. "Stay."

He waits for her grip to relax, waits for her to fall back asleep and let him go. But it doesn't happen. Instead, she tugs him towards her, and he loses any defences he may have had.

"Alright," he says, and she smiles.

He slips his shoes and jacket off and climbs into the other side of the bed, making a deliberate decision to stay on top of the covers. She shuffles back, pressing herself against him through the layers between them, and snuggles under his arm.

He falls asleep like that, holding her, and he wonders if he's ever going to be able to sleep in an empty bed again.

* * *

**a.n. **thank you so much for all the hits/favourites/follows/reviews, you guys are the best and i love you all.


	7. surprise

**january, year three**

He takes her on a picnic in the park, with the red chequered rug and the wicker basket and the bottle of wine and everything. It's a real, proper romantic date, and so of course she's extremely suspicious about the whole thing.

She pesters him for the entire walk there, teases him about having a massive crush on her and asks him if he's lost his job or burnt the house down or something and is trying to butter her up before telling her.

He tells her to be quiet and races her up the hill, and when they get there he insists on laying the rug out and setting up the plates and glasses and everything properly before even thinking about telling her what inspired this trip.

"So," she says, nibbling on a cracker with camembert cheese like a hamster, "what's all this about?"

He tries to contain his grin but can't stop it from spilling over his face, and he's even more delighted when she instinctively grins back.

"Well, I've got a surprise for you."

"I hate surprises," she says.

He nods, "I know you do."

He deliberately pauses, and she swats his arm and demands, "Well, go on then!"

Deciding that she's had enough torment, he produces two plane tickets from his pocket and holds them up for her to see.

"What are those?" she asks, voice wary but edging on excitement.

"Tickets," he says, "to New York."

"New York?"

"New York."

She's practically bouncing. "As in, New York, New York? Like, New York City?"

"Yes, that New York."

She pounces on him, planting her lips against his and snogging him until he's forgotten how to breathe.

"Good surprise?" he asks when he's eventually able to pry himself out of her arms.

"_Great _surprise!" she squeals, hugging him again. "When do we leave?!"

"Tomorrow."

She pulls back immediately. "Tomorrow?"

"Mhmm. And everything's taken care of," he assures her. "Work, your parents, all sorted. All you have to do is pack."

She bolts to her feet. "I have to pack. I have to _pack!_"

"But we haven't finished our picnic…" he says, watching as her hands go to her hair and she begins to freak out.

"Pack that too, we can finish it in New York!"

* * *

**a.n. **thanks so much for reviews/favourites/alerts, you guys rock! more feedback would be very much appreciated - please let me know what you think and if there's any particular scenes you'd like explored.


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